


The More Things Change

by Deus_Ex



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Blink And You Miss It Slash, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Car Chases, Coffee, Drabble, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, I'm Bad At Titles, Letters, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers, Running Away, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-09 22:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6926374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deus_Ex/pseuds/Deus_Ex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't a conscious choice.  But he locked eyes with Bucky, and saw the trepidation waiting there, and knew he could do nothing else.  "Go," he mouthed, nodding once to his friend in encouragement.  It seemed to take forever for Bucky to nod back, but he gunned the engine again and took off in the opposite direction, making a hard left just before the debris of the overpass and delving deeper into the maze of roads crisscrossing each other.  Steve could see the police cruisers approaching beginning to separate into teams.  They meant to pursue, to coral, to pin, to trap...and there was still the promise of lethality amid the chaos and confusion.  By now, Steve had already chosen: he was committed, and he needed to follow through.</p><p>He rose, backed up, and planted himself directly in the middle of their path.</p><p>-----------</p><p>Or: T'Challa missed.  Steve gives Bucky another chance to run, even knowing it carries the possibility of losing him all over again.  Minor spoilers for the movie, as tagged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The More Things Change

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick little "what if" I had running around in my brain for the last few days. Unbeta'd, written in one sitting just for the hell of it. Again, spoilers for the movie, but they are minor.

_"Bucky...this doesn't have to end in a fight."_

_"It always ends in a fight."_

Bucky had at least been right about one thing: it _did_ always seem to end in a fight. Deep down, Steve didn't even know if he believed himself when he said that it didn't have to. Would the German special forces have stood down if they saw that Steve had Bucky in custody himself? Would they have shot first and asked questions later? Could Steve have even beaten them to the punch in enough time to get and maintain control of the situation? Was it even possible to gain that control, let alone keep it? Steve's brain was whirling with all of these thoughts that he didn't have time for as he hurtled through the tunnel, right on the heels of the motorcycle that Bucky had somehow commandeered. He'd seen it with his own eyes and still didn't know how Bucky had done it. But those were more thoughts that he didn't have time for that he was somehow entertaining anyway.

What he really ought to be focusing on was the mystery addition to the fight. The one currently clinging to the back of the car he had borrowed (stolen?) and that he couldn't seem to shake. Because currently, that man was the greatest threat to Bucky's safety. The German special forces were swarming them in massive, almost absurd numbers, but Steve had faith that Bucky could handle them. They were just men with guns, and he'd faced down plenty worse and come out the other side. But this man, dressed as a black feline, completely masked, armed and armored, was clearly something else. He'd actually managed to fight with Bucky and stand his ground, even landing hits that seemed to _affect_ him. It was astonishing, but Steve was nothing more concerned now as he wove crazily through traffic, the squeal of tires desperately searching for a grip on the pavement almost drowning out the sound of furious motorists honking nearly incessantly at him as they scrambled out of his way.

And then the crash. And the bridge collapsing. And ditching the car. And the raw panic of just how close it had been. And the feeling of his heart in his throat and his throat closed like he was a five-foot-four asthmatic all over again. And the burn in his legs as he pushed even his own superhuman abilities bolting from the rolling vehicle trying to outrun both his opponent and the hunk of metal tumbling towards him. And the sight of dozens of cars converging on them, lights flashing and sirens blaring, the blur of black as the other enhanced dove past him, claw-tipped fingers glinting in the sudden outpouring of sunlight, outstretched, reaching, grasping like tendrils of shadows always on Bucky's heels, trying to bring him down, make him crash, drag him back into the past, reaching, reaching, reaching-

Missing.

Steve made his own dive, then, tackling the black-armored man to keep him down while Bucky got some distance. In that moment, his thoughts weren't clear beyond keeping the two of them separated-he still liked to think that his goal was still to bring Bucky in, alive and compliant, so they could sort this thing out the right way. It all flew out the window, though, when Bucky spun the bike around, realizing that rushing the oncoming barricade wasn't going to get him anywhere, and hesitated when he looked back at Steve.

There he was, pinning down the sole threat to Bucky's escape. Actively keeping him from pursuing Bucky. Up until now, Steve had been able to use the excuse that he was trying to stop _everyone_ from fighting, that he had been trying to detain Bucky as well, that he hadn't really picked a side. Now, though, he would need to choose one. Either he got up and chased Bucky, too, letting this other man as well as the hordes of special forces do so as well...or he did as he always had, and put himself between victim and bully, no matter how large the bully in comparison to himself.

It wasn't a conscious choice. But he locked eyes with Bucky, and saw the trepidation waiting there, and knew he could do nothing else. Bucky knew what was coming...and he was nervous. There was no way Steve could subject him to this. Not seeing how much he truly dreaded it. "Go," he mouthed, nodding once to his friend in encouragement. It seemed to take forever for Bucky to nod back, but he gunned the engine again and took off in the opposite direction, making a hard left just before the debris of the overpass and delving deeper into the maze of roads crisscrossing each other. Steve could see the police cruisers approaching beginning to separate into teams. They meant to pursue, to coral, to pin, to trap...and there was still the promise of lethality amid the chaos and confusion. By now, Steve had already chosen: now, he was committed, and he needed to follow through.

He rose, backed up, and planted himself directly in the middle of their path.

He knew well what he was doing when he hurled his shield beneath the tires of the first cruiser, sending it spinning wildly into several others with horrific shrieks of metal-on-metal and rubber on asphalt. He knew the sounds of shattered glass and cries of surprise and pain would echo in his skull for days, weeks, months, maybe even years to come. He knew his conscious would war forever between what he'd done and what he could have done, always debating which would have been the better option. But deep down, he knew that he didn't really have a choice. This was bred into his very being. It was who he was and what he did-it made up the very fibers of his bones. Defending those who needed defending: wasn't that the ideal every person who admired him had painted to embody? And didn't Bucky need defending right now?

It stung, it ached, it burned, it felt like every inch Bucky got farther away was another inch closer to losing himself...because surely Bucky had snatched a piece and taken it with him when he fled. But Steve had sent it willingly, he supposed, when he told Bucky to run. There was the chance, of course, that this would be the start of another years-long, potentially-fruitless search. There was also the chance that Steve might not see Bucky again. There had always been that chance. Seeing him speed off, though, as opposed to waking up alone on the edge of the Potomac, was a different sort of hurt. It was more acute, somehow, and he felt it screeching its agony in his chest, whereas before, it had been a dull, hollow, pounding ache that meant emptiness. Then, he had only felt the aftermath of the separation, and the despair of not knowing. Now, he was forced to feel the moment of parting itself, even as he enabled it. He didn't have a choice, though: he'd never had a choice. Bucky meant far too much to him to risk hurting that way. Steve didn't think he could live with himself if Bucky felt betrayed by him. Letting him go was the only option.

Steve fought until he could fight no longer. These were not Hydra agents that needed to fall, they were just men and women doing their job. They had willingly put their lives on the line for this job, serving the country they had sworn loyalty to. In a way, they were not so different from Steve himself. So when Captain America found that he could not do any more to delay them without taking some of them out of the equation, he figured Bucky had had enough of a head start anyway. He stopped, just stopped, out of nowhere, and laid his shield down and held up his hands in surrender. Kindness and mercy were not to be expected, but it still stung to have his face shoved into the pavement and his shoulders torqued as his arms were wrested behind his back. Even as he was loaded back into one of the very few driveable cars, he was cooperative-but he still worriedly scanned the surrounding roads, now gridlocked, for signs of Bucky. No, he didn't think he'd be stupid enough to stick around. Part of him just worried. He didn't exhale the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding until, just before the door slammed, he overheard one officer grunting to another, "And all because of him, that scum got away."

Only then could he slump down in the seat and let go of the tension coiled in his shoulders.

***

It was a miracle he wasn't in prison. Sure, he'd been detained for a few hours. Interrogated. Booked and processed. Berated. But Tony had done more yelling in the end and now he was just stripped of his gear and sitting on his hands waiting around. He ought to be thanking Tony by signing those damn Accords, not staring out the window pining. A part of him couldn't help it, though: yes, Bucky had gotten away in the moment, but what had happened to him after that? Surely he would have heard about it if someone had caught up to him. Hiding was going to be exponentially more difficult for Bucky now, though. If he was smart, he'd get out of the country by any means necessary and go hunker down somewhere far from a crowded city. Steve liked to think that he'd found a nice hidey-hole in some forgotten countryside, with a cute little old couple who didn't watch the news for neighbors. It was a nice fantasy, if nothing else.

T'Challa, as it turned out, was the man behind the mask. Sam had had no shortage of cat jokes, while T'Challa had no shortage of threats. Neither one particularly stuck beneath Steve's skin. Bucky was undiscovered, and therefore, safe. That was all that mattered. The rest would come, he told himself. Right now, looking for Bucky would only draw more attention to him. As it was when Bucky had first gone on the run, Steve's best chance at protecting him was standing in the foreground waving his arms and screaming like an idiot. Anything to get people to target him, and not his friend.

"You know you can't sit around and wait forever," Sam told him one day. They were sitting outside with cups of coffee in their hands, just watching the breeze flutter the leaves on the trees. It was perhaps the only moment of peace they would be able to snatch today, and Steve was determined to savor every moment of it.

"I don't intend to," he replied, glancing over at Sam with the kind of firm certainty that indicated he had no intentions of discussing the topic. "I just need to wait long enough."

Same shrugged helplessly. He didn't know what Steve was waiting for or how long "long enough" was, but he did know Steve well enough to know that, sometimes, waiting him out was the only option. When Steve didn't want to be budged...he simply wouldn't be. And there wasn't a force on earth that could compel him.

"You sure about this?" he settled for asking, sipping at his coffee to distract himself from the fact that he didn't even know what "this" was.

And Steve, of course, just nodded, with the hints of a smile at the corners of his mouth. "Yeah," he murmured, slow and contemplative. "Yeah, I am," he reiterated, less pensive this time and firmer instead.

Sam just shrugged helplessly again and went back to his coffee. It was shit, but it was better than trying to talk sense into Steven Grant Rogers.

***

A week later, Steve got a letter in the mail. No return address, no fingerprints, not even a signature. Just an address written in ancient code on a blank piece of paper. And he'd never grinned so hard in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't make this turn into a multi-chapter, don't make this turn into a multi-chapter...XC (My muse has control of me, not the other way around. Send help.) Cookies for all my readers, and thank you as always for comments and kudos! You guys always make my day! <3


End file.
